


Give Me To The Ground

by catteo



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1940784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catteo/pseuds/catteo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU post 2x04</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me To The Ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earnmysong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnmysong/gifts).



Paige learned, somewhere between basic training and her fourth takedown at Graceland, that there are moments when it’s better just to let your mind wander. She can’t remember now if it was Briggs who taught her that or Charlie. Maybe both. It seems like the sort of sage advice that the two of them like to dispense over the interminable wait for Charlie’s great-grandmother’s great-grandmother’s ragu. She used to practice on Johnny, planning entire operations whilst simultaneously holding a conversation with him. Paige is particularly proud of the occasion when she managed a record twenty-three minutes of non-committal responses before he demanded to know if she was really listening. Pain lances across her side, dancing up her ribcage as she sighs an amused breath at the memory, and wrenches her back to her present situation. Which, like most of the trouble she’s managed to get into recently, is really all Mike’s fault.

 

Sometimes Paige catches herself forgetting that he drives her crazy. It’s usually in the moment between him flashing his (kind of endearing, if she’s honest) boy scout smile and acting like an _actual_ Boy Scout. Which pisses her off. She’s a totally competent undercover DEA agent thank you very much (although she’s a big enough person to admit that the current situation may not be the best demonstration of that), and she doesn’t need him swooping in on his white horse and saving her bacon. She’s pretty certain that she’s mixing her metaphors, but honestly? Her vision’s blurred enough that she can’t make out if the metallic glint near her nose is a .45 or a 9mm, which would be embarrassing under normal circumstances, and she can feel her boots beginning to stick in the tacky crimson pool steadily expanding at her feet, so she’s giving herself a pass. The room blackens around the edges and her last thought before she loses consciousness is that it would be pretty great if Mike would show up with a SWAT team sometime soon.

 

+++

 

“You’re not listening! I told her that it would be okay. I _promised_ her, Mike.” She can hear her own voice cracking with the frustration that’s threatening to overwhelm her. Paige pushes so far into his personal space that even Briggs raises an eyebrow meaningfully in their direction. She might care if she wasn’t so upset.

 

“C’mon Paige, you know that this is bigger than just one girl. We’ve got the chance to break up an entire smuggling operation and we need to take it. We do it right and there won’t be any more girls that need saving. Okay?” 

 

The worst part of this is that Mike’s argument is totally rational. But she can’t escape the fact that she feels responsible. There was a moment when she could have walked a terrified girl out of a bus station and into a red pick-up truck and a new life, and she didn’t take it. She did her job and now all she can think of is the letter crumpled in her back pocket, and the way that the first two lines of the address bleed together where a single spot of moisture hit the page. 

 

“But I promised her.” She can feel the defeat twisting in her gut, the harsh taste of her unintentional lie bitter in her throat. Paige holds Mike’s gaze for the space of one heartbeat, willing him to just understand, to overrule the command of whoever the hell is calling the shots in DC. 

 

Two heartbeats.

 

“I’m sorry, Paige.”

 

Three.

 

And he looks away. 

 

The next three hours stutter across Paige’s vision like some art-house film that’s skipping frames, leaving the moral of the story just out of her grasp. She knows there’s always a moral. 

 

_Look before you leap._

_Be careful what you wish for._

 

She was so sure that she had the situation under control. 

 

_Pride comes before a fall._

 

That’s the one Paige’s father was always so fond of. She remembers it as a mantra uttered every time he picked her up off the floor, brushing dirt from bruised knees and kissing it better. She thinks that Lena must have a father who loved her. No. That’s not right. Loves her. Present tense. She won’t allow herself to consider the alternative. 

 

She shakes the thought from her head, takes another gulp from the glass at her elbow, relishing the way it burns down her throat. She somehow musters up a half-smile in response to Charlie’s concerned frown. It wouldn’t do to have anyone thinking that she’s falling apart. 

 

 _Arkins don’t fall apart_. 

 

She learned that one from her father too. A whispered confidence in her ear, meant for her alone. She can still feel it if she concentrates hard; the harsh scrape of a too-starched collar against her cheek, the creases still pressed into his dress blues like brands under her fingers. His last words to her dancing as clouds of breath in the chill air of early spring. 

 

“What?” Paige pulls herself back to the present as she hears her name.

 

“The bus? Two-twenty? We follow it whilst the others infiltrate the depot and check out the baggage hold, the engines, and anywhere else Jakes can think of that the cartel might have stashed drugs. Okay?”

 

“Okay,” and she knows she answers too fast, just a little too eager, but she wants to catch these bastards in the act. _Needs_ to catch them. Wants to look them straight in the eyes as they realize there’s no escape. She can feel the barest hint of a smile hovering on her lips as a silent thank-you. Mike acknowledges it with a nod and a grin of his own before totally ruining the moment by asking if she managed to get the blood out of her white dress just in case she needs to provide a distraction. The catcalls from the boys chase away the last of her ghosts hovering in the shadows, and it almost scares her how much she relies on these four people.

 

“So, Mikey,” Charlie’s voice cuts through the noise, “we do this and then you run back to DC as the conquering hero? That the deal?” And trust Charlie to say what all of them are thinking. 

 

“Charlie, I…” and whatever else he was about to say is cut off by the sound of Mike’s pocket asking everyone to hit him ‘one more time’, accompanied by Johnny doubling up in hysterics. 

 

“Seriously, Johnny? You gotta stop this. It’s the DC office...” Paige is almost sorry when he stops Britney mid chorus. “How the hell do you keep breaking my password anyway?” flung over Mike’s shoulder as he heads upstairs.

 

“Don’t hate the player, man.” Johnny’s expression is triumphant as the rest of them take their cue from Mike and head for their respective rooms. Paige can’t help but notice that Charlie follows Briggs like it’s no big deal, so at least things are starting to go back to normal. Jakes, however, is still sleeping on the couch and she wonders, not for the first time, why the hell Mike got rid of Zelanski anyway. (She wonders if it had something to do with the chewing gum incident. Possibly she should bring her own next time.)

 

There’s a quiet tap at her door and she turns to see Mike silhouetted by the hall light.

 

“Hey.” She knows it’s not much of a greeting, but she’s exhausted and all she wants right now is the oblivion of sleep.

 

“Hey yourself. I just wanted to say sorry. About earlier. For taking so long to figure out a way to look for Lena.” 

 

And she knows that he is sorry. Can see it written in the creases between his eyebrows. Feels it in the squeeze of his fingers on her shoulder.

 

“I know. I’m glad you got there eventually. I’d have hated to have to beat some sense into you,” she grins as he exhales a quiet laugh and smiles ruefully. 

 

“Yeah. ‘Cause that would have been terrible for me. Look, this thing with DC?” Paige raises her eyebrows as he pauses, “I think it’s over.”

 

“You want me to help you get over it?” She realizes that she’s a little tipsy, the three doubles she had on an empty stomach pleasantly blurring the room’s sharp edges as she slides her arms round Mike’s neck.

 

“Any assistance you could offer would be greatly appreciated,” he smiles as he tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, his hand hot on the back of her neck.

 

Part of her thinks that this whole thing is probably a terrible idea and can only end in disaster, but then his lips are on hers, his hands snaking down to her hips and skimming the waistband of her jeans and she stops thinking at all.

 

++++

 

Four days, six hours and seventeen minutes later and Paige is wishing that she’d never heard of Mike Warren and his stupid buses. It turns out that it was never really about the buses at all. The depot was a bust, no drugs to be found. Jakes, for all his crap, turned out to be right. The girls _are_ the product. Which is why she’s here. With Mike. Who she’s probably not talking to ever again.

 

Some asshole called Levi (how ironic) is currently running his index finger up her thigh and practically drooling down her cleavage. There are dark rings of grease staining his fingers, a violent counterpoint to the purple and green hues of his knuckles. Swollen joints telling a story that Paige can read only too well. 

 

She catches fragments of Mike’s voice through the wall, joking in the next room, spinning a tale about sisters and cousins back in the Ukraine and how they’re all as beautiful as his girlfriend. Who, by the way, also arrived in the good old US of A via an ‘alternative route’. She’d almost forgotten how good he is at wearing these roles like a second skin.

 

Dirty hands push her already too-short skirt up another inch and Paige can feel the bite of her own fingernails on her palms, the sharp sting keeping her focused. She knows that they need to play these roles to get the job done, to keep a promise, but it’s all she can do not to punch the smirk off Levi’s face. She imagines his face painted the same colours as his hands and narrows her eyes in satisfaction. 

 

“Hey, watch it man. That’s my property you’ve got your hands all over,” Mike pulls her to her feet. She wonders for a moment if it would be acceptable to punch him in lieu of Levi, currently sitting with his hands in the air in mock surrender, but instead manages to coax her features into something resembling a loving smile. She’s congratulating herself on a job well done when Mike smacks her on the ass and she almost loses character completely, spinning around to face him. Somehow he has her pulled up against him before she has a chance to open her mouth and burn them both.

 

“Anna, baby, Diego and Levi here are going to show us where the girls will stay when they arrive. Isn’t that great?” 

 

“Great,” she echoes, accent firmly in place. She doesn’t kiss him back. It’s a small victory but she gets a petty thrill out of seeing his eyes narrow in concern.

 

She almost twists an ankle in her ridiculous heels as they cross the parking lot outside. Mike catches her by the elbow to steady her and it doesn’t escape her notice that he doesn’t let go. At this point she’s not sure if it’s to help keep her footing or stop her racing ahead into the building opposite. Maybe both.

 

She’s blinded temporarily as the warm light of day is extinguished by a door slamming shut behind them. Then she’s assaulted by a smell that makes her glad of her lack of sight. There’s the acrid tang of sweat and coppery blood and undulating beneath it all is a dizzying layer of fear so strong that she thinks she could reach out and touch it. Slowly the room fades into focus and suddenly Mike’s weight behind her is the only thing keeping her standing.

 

There are dozens of them.

 

Girls covered in their own filth, gazing unseeing at the squalor around them. The shimmer of needles and glittering white powder seems incongruous in the dark shadows that creep from their corners, reaching out in a sinister embrace. Curtains partition part of the room and the sounds emanating from behind them are enough for Paige to know that she’s grateful for the pretence at privacy. Her body already rebelling at the things she can hear without the need for images to accompany them. She can feel the burn of acid hammering at the back of her throat, eyes stinging as she forces herself to take it all in.

 

And then she catches a glimpse of white skin and auburn curls. Limbs curled around a body so tight that she almost missed her. Lena. And Paige would feel relieved if it weren’t for the mottled shadows she sees on the girl’s arms and the haunted look on her face. 

 

There’s a scream hammering against her ribcage, ripping through sinew and bone, fighting its way to the surface but suddenly the sun is blinding her, the world flashing in and out of focus, and she wonders if this is what it feels like to drown. She catches glimpses of LA through the car window, streets and people smeared with grime, and she wonders how anyone could believe that this was the promised land. 

 

Time passes and Paige can’t work out if it’s minutes or hours or perhaps a lifetime since she left the safety of Graceland. She thinks that maybe her body has forgotten how to breathe. Somehow manages to stumble up the stairs before the sorrow coiled in her chest finally finds the crack it needs to claw its way out. She can hear Mike’s footsteps behind her, his words nothing but nonsense, a jumble of meaningless syllables she doesn’t care to translate. She thinks that maybe he’s calling her name, but the hammering of her own pulse in her ears is incessant. Overwhelming. 

 

Paige stops just over the threshold of her room, suddenly at a loss. She can feel the air coalesce around her, thick liquid molasses, dragging her down. And just when she thinks that it’s too much effort to stand, she feels Mike at her shoulder, a tangible presence. The lifeline she knows that she needs desperately to hold on to. Words still refuse to settle in their right places and she can’t seem to find a way to make the world stop spinning, so she lets Mike take the lead, steering her to the shower. 

 

She doesn’t make a sound as he pulls her down to the floor, can’t quite work out why they’re both fully clothed. The sudden onslaught of water wrenches her back to the present and she almost laughs at the absurdity of the moment, limbs anchored in a tangle of sodden denim and silk. Mike’s arms feel like the only thing tethering her to the ground and she tastes salt on her tongue. Can’t quite work out if she’s the one crying. 

 

++++

 

Mike’s breathing is even, the careless symmetry of sleep, when Paige slips from the covers. She knows that this is her only chance, the only time that she won’t be held back with words like _duty_ and _honour_. She thinks that what she’s about to do has its own duty and honour. But she knows from experience that the agency won’t see it like that. She thinks that maybe Mike would understand, but she doesn’t intend to give him the chance to find out.

 

The drive south passes faster than she thought that it would, the streets eerily quiet. She finds herself at the warehouse faster than she’d anticipated, grateful for the lack of moonlight as she flattens herself in the shadows near the door. The latch is cool under her fingers and she’s not really surprised when it doesn’t give at her touch. She slips a bobby pin from her hair, offers up a silent thanks to Briggs and his unorthodox training methods. She just feels the tumblers start to grip as the threatening catch of metal on metal sounds near her right ear. An ice-cold finger of fear snakes from the area of pressure at the top of her spine all the way to her toes and she recongnises the scent of stale beer and tobacco, so close that it makes her gag.

 

“Levi.” 

 

Part of her knew that there would be a reckoning.

 

“Nice accent. You wanna tell me your real name, _Anna_ ”, his words thick with sarcasm and a barely concealed threat that she wishes she could ignore. “Move.”

 

Somehow the room is even worse than she remembers, the heady scent of her own fear doing nothing to mask the reek of terror emanating from dozens of bodies. But she can see Lena huddled in the corner, and she can’t help herself. She hears a muffled curse as she starts to run, a voice ordering her to stop, and then a harsh noise rips through the night and pain tears through her side. Paige can’t quite work out why she’s on her knees in the middle of all this squalor. Perhaps this is a nightmare and the slick warmth on her fingers is nothing but a figment of her imagination. Fragments of thoughts form before slipping away in a teasing dance and this whole thing is absurd. She just needs to focus. Her vision blurs, despite her best efforts, and light bounces off smooth metal in the gloom. She stops fighting and allows her mind to wander as the room blurs around the edges, thinks that she can hear Mike’s voice as everything finally fades to black.

 

+++

 

Paige forces her eyes open and flinches as her body protests against even that slightest movement. Somehow she manages to force enough air past her raw throat to cough. It feels as though an army of drummers is beating a tattoo on her ribs. The jumble of shapes in front of her finally makes sense. Mike hovers over her, an anxious expression on his face.

 

“Hey.” The effort nearly kills her, but the smile that lights up his features makes the effort worth it.

 

“Hey yourself,” he grins, “So we’re getting shot now are we? Am I going to have to take two to the chest to compete or is the hand acceptable?” She manages to drag up a smile as Mike’s features suddenly become serious. “How’re you feeling?”

 

“Like crap. What happened?” And there’s a sudden moment of fear that this was all for nothing.

 

“Well I realized that I should really learn to sleep with one eye open. And the FBI’s kinda pissed that I used resources that I probably shouldn’t know about to track your phone. And Johnny got to coordinate a SWAT team which he’s pretty much never going to shut up about…”

 

“Mike,” she just needs him to shut up and tell her about the girls. About Lena.

 

“They’re safe Paige. To be honest most of them look a hell of a lot better than you,” he pauses, serious for a moment. “There was blood everywhere Paige. I thought we were too late.” His fingers lace with hers, squeeze gently.

 

“But you weren’t.” She smiles as he presses his lips to her cheek, rests his forehead against hers. Breathes in the scent of him and feels her breath catch in her throat, tears threatening to betray her relief.

 

“Did you bring me a get well soon present to make up for not getting shot with me?”

 

“Of course.” And as Mike produces a spoon from his inner pocket and places it triumphantly on the table beside her she knows that they’re going to be okay.


End file.
